In general, a rule is a logical construct for describing the operations, definitions, conditions, and/or constraints that apply to some predetermined data to achieve a goal. Conventionally, business languages and business software (e.g., spreadsheets) may be expressed in terms of business rules. For example, in an application that determines mortgage qualification of an applicant, an age requirement may be expressed in a rule requiring the age of an applicant to be over eighteen.
Conventionally, a business rule management system (BRMS) broadly refers to a system that manages business rules that may be used by a business application. For example, one existing BRMS evaluates rules against data provided to a business application in order to determine whether the conditions of any of the rules are satisfied. If the conditions of a certain rule are satisfied by the data, the business application applies the rule. In some existing BRMS, the underlying software components (e.g., the rules repository, the rule authoring program, and the rule engine) are implemented using complex programming tools, which require knowledge of advanced programming languages, methods, and techniques.